Michigan

Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum Curator Don Holloway, right, and Registrar Jamie Draper, work on a display case in the "Growing up Grand," centennial exhibit on Tuesday, April 30 at the Ford museum. The exhibit opens to the public May 7 and will run for about a year.
(Emily Zoladz | Mlive.com)

Now, some 45 years later, Clinton said she now sees the root of Ford's diligence and humility after visiting his presidential museum for the first time Monday.

Seeing "where it all started, the values that he learned, the lessons that were imparted in his family and his church, his work experience, was very touching to me," Clinton said Monday night to a crowd of 2,200 at the Economic Club of Grand Rapids' annual dinner.

The former first lady and President Barack Obama's first-term secretary of state said she arrived early to Grand Rapids, ahead of her Club visit, to tour the museum.

She wended her way through the current exhibit, "Growing Up Grand," which examines Ford's formative years in the city, before he was a congressman and, of course, president.

Clinton, rumored to be a 2016 Democratic presidential hopeful, said during her remarks to dinner attendees that seeing stories of Ford's younger years struck her.

"I'm kind of partial to presidential museums," Clinton said, "and I kind of like to see the story that unfolds, particularly of the younger years."

The exhibit, which runs through January 2014, also included parts Clinton said she could identify with.

In one wing, "there's a line that he was taught at home to tell the truth, work hard and be on time for dinner," Clinton said, to laughter. "Those are Midwestern values that I relate to having grown up outside of Chicago."